


Le Casse-tête

by elmathelas



Category: Australian Comedians RPF, British Comedian RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-02
Updated: 2011-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-24 06:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmathelas/pseuds/elmathelas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At L'Astral in Montreal Eddie Izzard unexpectedly came out to support Tim Minchin.  This is my flight of fancy regarding the moments just prior to that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Le Casse-tête

Tim leaned back on the couch, eyes closed, and arm thrown over his face for good measure. Even in the dark his eyes hurt, a dull dry pulsating ache somewhere just shy of actual brain.

He’d been wearing the same shirt for three nights in a row. The hotel had a laundry service, but each of the previous two nights he’d returned too tired to do more than fall straight to sleep, waking just late enough that the possibility of not getting the right shirt back was all too real. At the end of a long tour it was the only shirt he wanted. The white ruffles were fine for the beginning, but now, bloated with too many rich meals and too much alcohol the black oxford was literally the only one. Only now the stale smell was making his head throb and stomach turn too.

He sighed. He had enough staff at Just for Laughs that he could have sent someone out to any of Montreal’s million shops, told them to go, get me a black shirt. But he hadn’t.

Footsteps paused in front of him and he braced himself for the inevitable time check.

“Well, you’re looking a bit crap at the moment.”

Tim lifted his arm, vision blurry from both the headache and the pressure of his arm against his eyes, but he could make the figure out just fine.

“Eddie.” He sat up. “Did they text you to say I was having some kind of breakdown?”

“No, I was just looking over the schedule and thinking, who do I actually want to see? They told me you were sold out, so here I am, impinging on your backstage hospitality.”

“Not like you could have sat out there. I think there’s a fair bit of crosover. You’d be harassed to death.”

“Really?” Eddie sat down on the edge of the couch, his dark red suit a shining contrast to Tim’s battered black on black attire. “I hadn’t seen you since Melbourne. Should have looked you up before today.”

“I ‘d have been no good.” Tim leaned his elbow on the back of the sofa, massaged the side of his forehead with his hand.

“End of a long tour, right. Are your wife and kids here?”

“Back in London. Have been for a couple of weeks.” Just getting out nearly full sentences was a challenge.

“So. _Are_ you having some sort of breakdown?”

Tim laughed, a short sharp sound that hurt his head. “No. Not unless a headache is a kind of breakdown.”

“Do you want me to get you anything?”

“No. I’ve already taken everything that’s both legal and not actually mood altering.”

“Want me to try and fix it for you?”

Tim rolled his eyes, found that even that hurt.

“Oh alright then Doctor Izzard. Give it a go.”

Eddie pulled the ottoman in front of the sofa, then gestured to Tim that he should sit on it, facing away from him. Eddie settled himself, knees pressing into the middle of Tim’s back, a surprisingly acceptable sensation.

“Tilt your head back.”

Tim complied, and Eddie dug his fingers into the back of his neck, then up his scalp, somehow finding a way over or through the hair there. The pressure hurt at first, but within moments there was a feeling that spread all over his scalp-- release, a crackling kind of sensation as if something just on the surface of his skull was pulling and snapping.

Eddie moved his thumbs up, smoothed them over the skin behind Tim’s ears, a place he hadn’t ever realized had hurt until that moment, then up over his temples, down to the neck again and lower, to his shoulders.

Tim sighed, felt his back pop as he leaned into Eddie’s hands, pressing into his shoulder blades now.

Eddie shifted his knees to either side of Tim’s hips, leaving him with nothing behind him. “Lean back more.”

Tim leaned back until his back hit Eddie’s chest, a warm solid pressure. Eddie smoothed his hands over Tim’s shoulders twice, then rested them over his biceps, kneading them briefly.

“You ought to get a proper massage when you get back to London.”

“I might do.” Tim let his head fall to one side, face against the smooth fabric of Eddie’s lapel. “Why’d you stop waring women’s clothing anyway?” The fatigue and headache, mercifully receding now, finally, had loosened his tongue.

Eddie ran his hand over the crown of Tim’s head, practically petting him.

“Who says I did?”

“For your act, I mean.”

“Times change. Do you wear the same clothes as you did ten or fifteen years ago?”

Tim shrugged. “Nearly.” He though of his jeans though, loose pale denim. The chamois shirts. The _headband_. “No, actually, I guess not.”

“I thought not.” Eddie shifted, and Tim saw it, just the edge of a lace-trimmed camisole. Without thinking of it he left his hand follow his gaze, tracing along the edge of the fabric.

“Felt too much like giving myself away, sometimes,” Eddie said.

“Yeah.” Tim let his hand fall away, and Eddie shifted, the chemise hidden again.

Eddie gave the base of his skull one last squeeze, pushing Tim gently to sit up.

A production assistant, identified by the omnipresent green shirt/purple badge of a Juste Pour Rire employee walked in, the colors seeming to jab at his eyeballs.

“Two minutes.”

Tim groaned as the man walked away.

“I’ll do it,” Eddie said.

“What?”

“I’ll go out and be you for a moment or two. When you’re tired of that, come on out.”

The gaudy music started up, and while Tim was still trying to decide whether or not to let it happen Eddie had bounded off at the sound of the announcer’s voice.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Tim Minchin!”

He walked to the edge of the green room, leaning forward to see the thinnest sliver of the stage through the wing curtains. The stage was in complete darkness, the applause and cheering from the crowd almost deafening. It paused for a moment of confusion when Eddie was seen, then increased.

“Bon soir!” Eddie yelled out, another surge of cheers. “Je m’appelle Tim Minchin. Je joue un peu du piano, ce soir, pour vous, le publique Quebecois!”

The cheering gave way to laughter as Eddie plucked out a hesitant Heart and Soul, ending on a misplaced C-sharp.

“Merde.”

Tim laughed, and ran out, grinning, to save him.

 

After the duet, after the first jokes and the first heckler, Time took the center stage to perform Storm, enjoying the moment of audience apprehension that still fell upon the opening line.

“This is a nine minute beat poem.” There were enough fans and repeat viewers that there was no question as to whether or not they’d come along for it. He forgot himself, forgot his headache, his homesickness, forgot about everything but the story as the words rolled off his tongue to the familiar jazz track. He forgot about Eddie, too, until nearly the end.

 _  
These people aren’t plying a skill,  
They are either lying or mentally ill.  
Same goes for those who claim to hear God’s demands  
And Spiritual healers who think they have magic hands.  
_

He faltered, so briefly that no one could have noticed, kept going, stared down the heckler at the last, viciously satisfied to see that the man stood and walked out.

Back stage he sank back down on to the sofa, briefly considered not going out for an encore. Standing between the cushions there was a piece of paper, and he plucked it out.

 _See you in London. -- Eddie. PS I don’t think I have magic hands, thanks very much. Great set. Sorry I’m going to miss your encore._

Tim stood and finished the wine he was still holding in his hand, more a prop than anything else, a little dusty, now across the top. “Too right you’re sorry you’re going to miss my encore.” He walked back out, still tired but buoyed by pleasant thoughts of home.


End file.
